(If you missed the beginning of this series, please start with The IRA Awards Part 1)

Johnny Mercer!  Oh my goodness, what a lyricist! He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others.  From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and performed were among the most popular hits of the time.  He wrote the lyrics to more than a thousand songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows.  He received nineteen Academy Award nominations and won four.  Mercer was also a co-founder of Capitol Records.

Among his thousands of songs were the following classic standards: Come Rain Or Come Shine, Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive, Autumn Leaves, Fools Rush In, I’m Old Fashioned with Jerome Kern, I Remember You, Moon River with Henry Mancini, Skylark with a great melody by Hoagy Charmichael, That Old Black Magic, One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) with Harold Arlen, Satin Doll with Duke Ellington, and On The Atchison Topeka And The Santa Fe.

This one’s drop-dead gorgeous.

Skylark
Have you anything to say to me?
Won’t you tell me where my love can be?
Is there a meadow in the mist
Where someone’s waiting to be kissed?

Oh skylark
Have you seen a valley green with spring?
Where my heart can go a journeying
Over the shadows and the rain
To a blossom covered lane

And in your lonely flight
Haven’t you heard the music in the night?
Wonderful music
Faint as a will o’ the wisp
Crazy as a loon
Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon

Oh skylark
I don’t know if you can find these things
But my heart is riding on your wings
So if you see them anywhere
Won’t you lead me there
Oh skylark
Won’t you lead me there?

For this next song, Johnny Mercer also wrote the music.

When an irresistible force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live
Somethin’s gotta give
Somethin’s gotta give
Somethin’s gotta give

When an irrepressible smile such as yours
Warms an old implacable heart such as mine
Don’t say no, because I insist
Somewhere, somehow, someone’s gotta be kissed

So, en garde, who knows what the fates might have in store?
From their vast mysterious sky?
I’ll try hard ignorin’ those lips that I adore
But how long can anyone try?

Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight it with all of our might
Chances are some heavenly star-spangled night
We’ll find out just as sure as we live
Somethin’s gotta give
Somethin’s gotta give
Somethin’s gotta give

Fight fight fight it with all of your might
Chances are that some heavenly star-spangled night
We’ll find out just as sure as we live
Somethin’s gotta give

I could spend a couple of nights on Johnny Mercer alone, so it seems almost silly to bundle him tonight with another of the great genius lyricists, but here goes.

Cole Porter was born in Indiana, to a wealthy Baptist family.  His mother started Porter in musical training at an early age; he learned the violin at age six, the piano at eight, and he wrote his first operetta (with help from his mother) at 10. Beginning in 1909, Cole went to Yale where he sang both in the Yale Glee Club, of which he was elected president his senior year, and in the original line-up of the Whiffenpoofs.

Porter was working as a songwriter when the U.S. entered World War I in 1917.  Porter actually enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and served in North Africa.  He was transferred in 1917 to the French Officers School at Fontainebleau and was assigned to teach gunnery to American soldiers.  He set up a luxury apartment in Paris and alternated between his officer duties and leading a playboy lifestyle.  His songs reflect his lifestyle.

What a character!  Such a talent!  He was one of the few lyricists of his time who also always wrote the music to his songs.

My story is much too sad to be told,
But practically everything
Leaves me totally cold.
The only exception I know is the case,
When I’m out on a quiet spree,
Fighting vainly the old enui
And I suddenly turn and see,
Your fabulous face.

I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you

Some get a kick from cocaine
I’m sure that if I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrifically too
Yet I get a kick out of you

I get a kick every time I see you standing there before me
I get a kick though its clear to me you obviously don’t adore me

I get no kick in a plane
Flying too high
With some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do

Yet I get a kick
Out of you

Cole Porter: Clever, clever, clever.  This genius wordsmith opitomized urban music and the New York City glamor in the 1940s.

Times have changed,
And we’ve often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today,
Any shock they should try to stem,
‘Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.

The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today,
And day’s night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos

And though I’m not a great romancer
I know that I’m bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes

When grandmama whose age is eighty
In night clubs is getting matey with gigolo’s,
Anything Goes.

When mothers pack and leave poor father
Because they decide they’d rather be tennis pros,
Anything Goes.

If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like
Or me undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose!
When every night,
The set that’s smart
Is intruding in nudist parties in studios,
Anything Goes.

The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today,
And day’s night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I’m not a great romancer
I know that I’m bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes

If saying your prayers you like,
If green pears you like
If old chairs you like,
If back stairs you like,
If love affairs you like
With young bears you like, Why nobody will oppose!

And though I’m not a great romancer
I know that I’m bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes…
Anything goes!

Whew!  The man is a word machine churning out clever twists and turns by the gallon.  Cole Porter was also the master of the list song.  Here’s my favorite.

At words poetic, I’m so pathetic
That I always have found it best,
Instead of getting ’em off my chest,
To let ’em rest unexpressed,
I hate parading my serenading
As I’ll probably miss a bar,
But if this ditty is not so pretty
At least it’ll tell you
How great you are.

You’re the top!
You’re the Coliseum.
You’re the top!
You’re the Louver Museum.
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You’re a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare’s sonnet,
You’re Mickey Mouse.
You’re the Nile,
You’re the Tower of Pisa,
You’re the smile on the Mona Lisa
I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I’m the bottom you’re the top!

Your words poetic are not pathetic.
On the other hand, babe, you shine,
And I can feel after every line
A thrill divine
Down my spine.
Now gifted humans like Vincent Youmans
Might think that your song is bad,
But I got a notion
I’ll second the motion
And this is what I’m going to add;

You’re the top!

You’re Mahatma Gandhi.

You’re the top!
You’re Napoleon Brandy.
You’re the purple light
Of a summer night in Spain,
You’re the National Gallery
You’re Garbo’s salary,
You’re cellophane.
You’re sublime,
You’re turkey dinner,
You’re the time, the time of a Derby winner
I’m a toy balloon that’s fated soon to pop
But if, baby, I’m the bottom,
You’re the top!

You’re the top!
You’re an arrow collar
You’re the top!
You’re a Coolidge dollar,
You’re the nimble tread
Of the feet of Fred Astaire,
You’re an O’Neill drama,

You’re Whistler’s mama!

You’re camembert.

You’re a rose,

You’re Inferno’s Dante,

You’re the nose
On the great Durante.
I’m just in a way,
As the French would say, “de trop”.
But if, baby, I’m the bottom,
You’re the top!

You’re the top!
You’re a dance in Bali.
You’re the top!
You’re a hot tamale.
You’re an angel, you,
Simply too, too, too diveen,
You’re a Boticcelli,
You’re Keats,
You’re Shelly!

You’re Ovaltine!
You’re a boom,
You’re the dam at Boulder,
You’re the moon,
Over Mae West’s shoulder,
I’m the nominee of the G.O.P.

Or GOP!

But if, baby, I’m the bottom,
You’re the top!

You’re the top!
You’re a Waldorf salad.
You’re the top!
You’re a Berlin ballad.
You’re the boats that glide
On the sleepy Zuider Zee,
You’re an old Dutch master,

You’re Lady Astor,
You’re broccoli!
You’re romance,
You’re the steppes of Russia,
You’re the pants, on a Roxy usher,
I’m a broken doll, a fol-de-rol, a blop,

But if, baby, I’m the bottom,
You’re the top!

Cole Porter: He was the top!

(If you missed the beginning of this series, please start with The IRA Awards Part 1)

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.